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362 thoughts on “The Genius: Grand Final”

Ahhh, my goodness, sorry if I start to sound fanboyish, but imo that was one of the top mainmatches The Genius has ever produced. All the best Genius games are “games that look like they are about x, but are actually about y”. Fish Shop was set up to look like a game like Fruit Stand, but it totally isn’t. The key, key, point is that a 2-man alliance can block out all the fish, effectively confining everyone to ~1$ per fish, and bc. it’s 2 tokens of life, this is a safe victory. Knowing that, one has to expect every fish to go to for 1$ – even if you had trust that the other players won’t betray you, letting some of the fish sell for more than 1$ means your team could get beaten by someone who gets onto more of the high-value fish. That’s why the other alliances had to got to $1 in round 1, and that’s where hyunmin/dongmin fell down, and it should have been obvious, all one needed to do was watch which pairs of players always avoided.

The*amazing* tactic that let yeonseung/juneseok beat yoohyun/kyunghoon was to deploy juneseok as a ‘weapon’ – on the fish juneseok played he announced his intention, so no-one got more than 1$. That meant all the ‘messy’ rounds, where slightly more than 1$ could go due to people being fooled, could fall onto yeonseung. Add onto that his fantastic acting during the middle bit, yeonseung has a truly deserved win here.

It’s a shame the edit rhythm made the fact another twist was coming so apparent (ie: us seeing hyunmin in the dealer room during r1, us seeing so much of the collaspse of kyungran’s plan, us seeing hyunmin so confident right before the final reveal), although I was pleased they went straight for the headline at the end, *then* through the murky details, rather than trying to string out the reveal of the identity of the loser for 3 minutes.

I’ve never seen hyunmin look so weak as today, he was *roundly* beaten and it opens up the possiblity of players other than dongmin/hyunmin becoming the dominant ones. Yoonsun never really did anything wrong, but as a bit of a spare-part player, I don’t mourn her much. It’s a shame that they changed the DM without improving it — the nature of that rootx+rooty thing meant it could only be used a smattering of times — and it’s still too much of a buzzer battle. I still wonder if buzzing *before* the number is revealed was an intended hack. We at least have concrete proof that S2 was the worst season now.

Wow, they really didn’t want to give garnets out for Fish Market. And that did hurt gameplay. Would much rather see production control garnet numbers by retiring the yawn-worthy will drama.

Production seems to have finally found out how to produce drama in every episode. Apparently, one needs to use either games so fickle that strategy is irrelevant or so easy that most of the contestants can fully solve them. That way, we can all focus on personalities without all the annoying gameplay getting in the way.

Having said that, I am happy the better implementation of the obvious came from a less expected source. And I also rather enjoyed the tense DM. I would have liked to see a marathon version of it, where it goes on till both players and balls are exhausted. I somewhat surprised myself by not rooting for HyunMin. Both he and Jinho seem to be coasting along this season.

Mmm, once the sell everything for $1 thing came up it felt like a pretty unexciting watch, but I enjoyed the surprise reveal of the result and the way it all unravelled.

The roots addition to the deathmatch was a bit of a non-event, especially as it’d only work with 1, 4 and 9, although I can understand throwing something in to try and dissuade usage of the easier functions to make things a bit more interesting. Perhaps (x^2 +/-) might have been more useful.

I really liked Episode 4! ^_^ I expected something else to be going on, but now those two working together and pulling off a win :o.

I will confess, when I first saw the preview during Episode 3, I immediately suspected two people could do that and block off all fish (but didn’t know all the rules first so wasn’t sure if there’d be something preventing it). However, it should be noted that it isn’t necessarily a “winning” strategy, but moreso a safeguard to prevent you from getting last.

I’m not 100% positive, but I think if you knew others were doing that strategy, two players could collude, and both put all 6 fish on one item together, with one person bidding $1 on all 6 fish, and the other bidding $5 or whatever (how much they’d earn would depend on how many other people bid on that item, but if chosen correctly they’d pobably get $1.33*6 on average, or more). This could be a kamikazee strategy that’d guarantee one person the win, and the 2nd person the loss (and allow them to pick anyone that was using the first strategy as an opponent).

Pretty funny that they both spotted the twist AND that there happened to be someone who could enact it to a certain point. Seemed a tough game for the rebels to win, but Dongmin’s spider senses are really something else.

Glad about the Deathmatch winner – would’ve been a long trek to the final with one woman left. I don’t know why the casting is so down on the women – they often provide the most fun on this show, as this episode proved.

Absolutely, but it’s important to remember that the show’s been produced for a Korean audience and expectations and it’s largely pointless criticising it through the prism of Western culture and attitudes, and that whilst undoubtably changing it’s a conservative, male-oriented society.

There is little doubt that in the West it would be an equal gender split.

Just saying that this sentence: ‘whilst undoubtably changing it’s a conservative, male-oriented society.’ would also still apply to the UK. I’m not sure it’s a massive difference to say well our ‘reality gameshows’ reflect society even if none of our other tv shows do. Plus Bear Grylls first series of The Island.

I have no idea what Korean society and television (barring The Genius) is like. I’ve never been. But I know what UK society and television is like and both remain patriarchal. I don’t know why you’d call someone laughable and silly for acknowledging this but that’s all I was doing. If I have expressed myself poorly and /or caused annoyance then I’m sorry for that and I certainly didn’t intend to. I hope you enjoy the rest of the series.

Producers in the UK will *positively* discriminate to get females in their productions, they are evidently not nearly so bothered in Korean shows.

If you can’t see that there’s a broad difference in attitudes in how Western women and Korean women act and are protrayed in reality television and how this reflects on society then I can’t help you any further. UK players would be far, far less likely to just submissively accept their fates.

I’m sure that there are significant gender politics differences between Korea and the UK. I do not (and did not) deny this. The West must enforce positive discrimination to ensure programmes include even a single female in comedy panel shows, quiz shows and more. This shows that there remains an underlying societal belief that women are not as funny or smart as men. The women who are selected understand that they are there primarily because they are a woman. Not because they are funny or smart or entertaining or interesting. This is quite a burden and likely puts many capable women off trying to get onto these shows. Maybe The Genius (UK) would fall into the Big Brother category of equal representation. But I think it’s at least possible that it would fall into the Mastermind/Only Connect/Would I lie to You etc category of unequal representation. I understand that you don’t think this would happen. I hope you’re right.

I think whoever it was that let everyone know that the one girl knew all the digits (I’m bad with names sorry XD) made a bad move.

If you know the sequence, it’s better to keep it hidden knowledge that you knew the sequence, and question people about what their options were when they went in. This could easily easily easily catch 1, 2, or all 3 bad guys if you know they’re lying about their options.

I did realize at the end that the King really was the “Kingmaker”. The moment the king is elected, what does it matter to him which side wins – he is automatically granted safety regardless if Loyalists win or not. It might have almost been best for the 3 rebels to find a common person they all trust/want to save and would want to save at least 2/3 of them and say “yo let’s work together we’ll back you for King the final round and you make sure loyalists lose” and all 4 of them are safe… although I suppose that’s what Dongmin was trying to avoid with getting everyone to stay together.

ALSO

Huh? @ Jinho putting 2 on Side B at the beginning. I was convinced he was a rebel after that. 2 is the best # to put directly after a 1, so why put it on the B side when it goes perfectly on the A column. It’s only a difference of 1 digit, but it still seems illogical ?

Yes – me too with Jinho! I was really worried for him there! Seemed especially daft to make yourself suspicious for only only one point. Maybe the group agreed to start both lines or something so he was following orders? Doesn’t seem like a mistake a (loyalist) Jinho would make!

In my opinion, of course, OUR society has not grown up enough. Women’s Civil Right has declared in 1948 with organizing Government, but still has traces of Patriarchy in many side. We have many old age persons who still remember the Colonial era, War period, dictator’s era. “Glass Ceiling” of Korean society is still thick. (even Dongmin has insulted females in Podcast!)

Nowadays of Korea, conservatively mood has changed, but still it’s survived. our case is better than India or Arab’s case, but can’t be compared with “the West”.

So Korean Women have taken less opportunity to upbringing their abilities, also about process to handling “gamely” situations, in past. Maybe Kim Kyung-ran is the best case in this mood of society. Korean female have been in the shadow of social competition about many decades.

In the other hand, Korean male has given recommendation for improving their abilities, with excessive responsibilities followed. (That’s the patriarchy is.) So they can bear people like Jinho, Sangmin, Dongmin, who developed variety skills.

It can be judged by anyone. I didn’t mean what that our social mood is right. It sucks. 🙂 I just wanna see more another Kyungran or Yunsun in both of real world and TV show. Maybe for more times and efforts passing, there be better,

As the mirror or figure of real world, The Genius is worth enough. Wishing more powerful female players will be showed up in next season. 🙂

Not quite sure what to make of the Main Match – it’s werewolf with number sequences effectively, and I think you’ve really got your work cut out if you’re a rebel here, although they had the right idea but Yoohyun went for it a round too early. Dongmin is amazing.

Some world class slo-mo multi-angle card non-reveals this episode as well.

I love Indian Poker, and I love the result, although I don’t love the rolling the pot over thing, The Genius always strikes me a show that tries to minimize luck as far as possible and the way the betting rules are set up it’s much harder to play your way out if your chips are tied up in a previous pot. I don’t really understand why it couldn’t just be split as it would in proper poker.

Yep, I think there’s good reason why everyone was praying not to pick the rebel card. Mind you, if I was a rebel I’d have been pretty chuffed that all the brainiacs quickly outlined a load of strategies and counter-strategies for me, although maybe not as chuffed as if they were on my rebel side with me. I felt sorry for Yoohyun – I bet he was more gutted than Jungmoon herself that she was a rebel. Especially watching her unable to resist showing off her pi memory skills. I bet that’s what his note was about!
Agreed, Dongmin is amazing and courageous. And I too dislike the Indian Poker draw mechanism. And not just because (heart) Jinho, I don’t want to see any all-star go out on a coin flip.

I honestly don’t get why people are so down on the rebels. As shown in the episode, it’s really hard for the loyalists to make the numbers work even if they have perfect info and there’s only one betrayal. They just need to have two rebels keep their heads down and they have a good chance of winning.
The real issues here were that Jungmoon couldn’t keep her mouth shut (really, she was playing for herself from the beginning) and Dongmin is amazing.

I think that the DM rules were very scary for the rebels and it’s easier and more comfortable to be in the majority group and not have to act. Even without Dongmin it’s easy to do something to give yourself away over the 3 or 4 (?) hours the game is being played. With Dongmin (as a loyalist) seems you’re on a hiding to nothing. I wonder how it would have gone with Dongmin replacing Jungmoon as a rebel? The 3 rebels would then likely have been loyal and Yoohyun wouldn’t have been panicked into making a move that threw suspicion on him.

I thought Kyunghoon’s desperation to get Yooyhyun’s yellow pad was uncomfortably aggressive. Dongmin handled that beautifully too. And also turned out to be a brilliant poker coach. After last week’s debacle Dongmin is back up at the top…

A lot of Korean netizens are angry at KyungRan (DM lady) for shunning JungMoon (Mensa/ Pi girl) in the end when she wouldn’t look at JungMoon despite her repeated apologies. The issue stemmed from the after-MM interview when KyungRan said “Did you (JungMoon) really need to survive that badly?”.

But in my opinion, the editing already revealed how the producer wanted to portray both characters.

I have to note that Dongmin was incredible in this episode. Nobody questioned that he should be King throughout.

Jungmoon gave herself away to Dongmin by not caring who was the first King – I marked her as a sure rebel for that.

I also thought revealing the digits of pi openly was a rebel move – rebels can cover themselves by giving false but credible numbers later. As a loyalist, private checking would reveal the rebels in the tentative early movements.

But Kyungran? I have no idea how Dongmin picked up on that.

Very glad that Kyungran won the DM (with good poker play!): the gender balance was already grating.

I’m thinking that the thing to do is to reveal the digits of pi but massage them so that the groups that correspond to the other rebels are more inconvenient, while being entirely honest to the loyalists (maybe with a few ‘mistakes’ in there to allow for plausible fallibility). Your allies will realise what you’re doing when they go in to the dealer room and see that the numbers on the table aren’t the ones you told them, which might avert Yoohyun’s panicky gambit; as soon as he realises you have the power to tailor the lie, he’ll be more reassured and feel less like he needs to reveal himself that early. Kyunghoon’s still a factor, there, but I’m not entirely sure people particularly believed him until Yoohyun revealed himself; he was accusing *everyone* at the start!

Trouble is, that plan requires planning and careful thought, along with thinking on your feet to adjust as two people are imprisoned each time, changing up the association between groups and players. I’m not sure they had long enough between turns to hash out that strategy and execute it well.

I wonder how many turns the rebels need to interfere with to make them fail, assuming they’re playing perfectly. It struck me that as soon as you gain a digit, for the most part the previous digit becomes irrelevant; the value of it only really matters in the (relatively) few occasions you can pair the tens digit.

It’s a shame they didn’t have long enough to get to the Feynman Point, that would have shaken things up!

I don’t agree that Yoohyun panicked at all. He knew that he was strongly suspected as a rebel and would very likely spend the rest of the game in jail anyway, so he acted at the only time he felt he could. Objectively, it wasn’t the optimal time to do it but given his circumstances it was as optimal as he was likely to get.

Actually, how likely is it to play the game perfectly and *avoid ever getting into three figures*, except right at the end? It’s just struck me that as soon as a column gets into three figures, one rebel can instantly end the game right there and then. They’ve revealed themselves, but the Loyalists have absolutely no evidence for any other rebel, and have to take a guess, with a 75% chance of picking a Loyalist instead and losing.

With the amount of chips he had, he had to either shove or fold. There is little reason to have ~5 chips left because you bleed chips so fast and it would require around 3 double ups to actually be back to around even. Taking a chance to even up the game completely was the right move there

I suspect that the producers must have known about Jungmoon’s extraordinary π knowledge and chose the numbers for the game accordingly. Of course, they wouldn’t have known which side she’d end up on in the game but either way makes for potentially interesting situations.

Much as I’m admiring Dongmin’s game-playing skills, I’m starting to worry that he’s just dominating proceedings too much. All the other players are in total awe of him and appear to be following his instructions almost without question, particularly with Sangmin out of the game. I’d love to see challenge Dongmin’s position as the alpha character but I don’t see any obvious contenders. Shame, really.

That said, I’m absolutely loving every single game this series, and every single contestant too. Amazing stuff all round.

For those looking for music (without figuring out which track it is in the Youtube playlist), scroll around their photos pages. They’ve been uploading the music tracks they play each week but its far from a comprehensive list.

To me, this just goes to show what a hugely cool piece of game design it was. Perhaps not a game that I’d enjoy playing, especially if I’d been a rebel, but amazing to watch.

Not sure why Yoohyun didn’t play the “OK, I’m a rebel, but I’ll betray the other two” card a lot sooner, but the player who had memorised 100 digits of π was always likely to be the one of the three to be saved.

In this day and age when you can get 240fps slo-mo from an Iphone 6, I’d rather like to see a little higher frame rate when they’re going to do a slowed-down card flip reveal.

As I asked upthread, I was curious to see if there was a solution that never entered three figures. I suppose there’s now a logical corollary in: is there a single instancewhere a rebel can force a jump to three figures (or indeed a jump to two, but that strikes me as more unlikely) that forces failure? Something into the 800s strikes me as having a lot of potential.

I’m curious if the rebels *can* win with a well-placed single move, since that would result in the 75%-chance-of-victory I mentioned earlier (one rebel clearly exposed, the other two having made no threatening moves.)

While it’s tough to manufacture within the confines of The Genius, I wonder if this game would have benefitted by giving the rebels thirty minutes to discuss strategy in isolation (with all other players individually separated, of course)

In Season 1, it grew slowly and steadily from the lowest rating in Ep.1 of 0.40% to the Eureka Open!Pass! game in Ep.7 where it peaked with a highest rating of 1.16%. It then dropped back down to a 0.70~0.80% range for the remainder of the season.

In Season 2, it peaked with a 1.73% on Ep.2 (Seat Exchange) which is probably due to the DM between 2 celebrities (JaeKyung and Noh HungChul). It then recorded the season’s worst rating in Ep.3 (King Game) with a 1.04%. After, it hovered around the 1.30~1.40% until Ep.7 (God’s Judgement) when it recorded a 1.61% spike possibly due to Hong JinHo’s DM match. It then dropped to a 1.10% range and never recovered.

In Season 3, it started off with a 1.27% rating and recorded 1.50~1.70% ratings for Ep.3-7 until Ep.8 (Investment and Donation) where it recorded a 1.88% rating. It then returned to a 1.30% range and ended in this range. (The lowest rating was in Ep.10 (Chain Auction) with the returning champions, it was due to an overrun of the MAMA music awards that postponed the broadcast until 2am).

So, an overview,

S1 had a steady climb that peaked at Ep 7 and dropped to a plateau of 0.80%.

S2 peaked at Ep.2 and dropped to a plateau of 1.3% where it peaked again in Ep.7 and dropped even further with a 1.1%.

S3 plateaued from Ep.3 to Ep.7 in the 1.6% range and spiked in Ep.8 and then fell back to a 1.3% plateau.

Damn that was a great ending to the main match. I think Kyunghoon’s finally proven once and for all that he deserves to be there as much as anyone, even though Dongmin was the real brains behind the joint win. The game itself was also pretty clever and offered a lot of opportunity for upsets.

At the same time, I’m incredibly frustrated by the deathmatch. Something about Junseok really annoys me and I was looking forward to seeing him go. Yeonseung also happened to be one of my favorites, and I’m a bit surprised to see him fooled so easily. I guess the pressure just got to him like with Yeonjoo last season, but if you have unlimited time to sit there and come up with a solution, surely you’d be able to? It’s not a very complex game, and it’s pretty easy to work out where you would need to place your tiles. Oh well.

I’m also a little confused as to why Junseok had to leave it to chance to choose between Yeonseung and Jungmoon anyway. They figured out Jungmoon was a spy halfway through the game, so I don’t really get why he didn’t pick her right away.

I’m sitting here with an Excel sheet trying to diagram it out, and I think I know where you’re going, BUT…

…Junseok’s pattern has three options for the left hand side, and that means it’s not a guaranteed win for anybody. Here’s my crude drawing of such: http://i.imgur.com/jm4SW2H.png (Junseok’s pattern is pattern A into the corner, but the S-curve pattern B and the tight pattern C are also options)

Once the rail sequence is fixed, Monorail *almost* turns into a game of Nim, but the restrictions on contiguous placement and linear placement allow for some creative play to turn the tables.

For example, if you made the first play you stated, I can counter with two pieces in the middle of the right column, and guarantee a win: http://imgur.com/zqjxQeU You can’t come back and do the same on the left side, because of the contiguous rule.

In your second play, you’ve not filled in the left hand side, so the options are still there, and you’ve not committed to the Junseok pattern.

I am thoroughly disappointed in JungMoon. If we treat last episode as a tactical error, this episode is plain desperate survival.

I can see why she must drag JunSeok and YeonSeung down with her as joint last place because
1) She was a spy for the other team, so if the other team won, she wouldn’t be chosen and
2) JunSeok and YeonSeung are bigger threats than her, so she wouldn’t be chosen.

However, it was a really ugly survival episode. The sequence with her begging for a garnet was just… Unbearable. I understand her in the sense that she had a promise/deal with JunSeok in Round 7 that JunSeok didn’t follow through, but her way of expressing herself was a bit bad.

I don’t know if it is just the editing, but she was portrayed as a selfish lady with only her own interest in mind. She
1) Acted as a spy just to avoid coming in last ( and as to return a favour)
2) Practically begged for a garnet
3) Only had the “give me a garnet” mindset during planning time.

I believe JunSeok was a bit annoyed by JungMoon not just because she was harping about the garnet, but the fact that he might be able to work out a strategy in which both KyungHoon and JungMoon would get garnets but she kept interrupting.

On the other hand, while I enjoyed DongMin’s play immensely, I can’t help but be disappointed that DongMin dominated the game once again. He basically dominated the games and the screen time in Ep. 1,2,5,6 and half of 3. (Maybe he is just smart and makes good TV)

On this note, I would really hope that JinHo and KyungRan can rise up to the challenge and break the DongMin monopoly, at least for 1 episode to not make this a S3 revamp version. Also, I can’t help but want to have either DongMin or HyunMin eliminated before Final 4 in order to break up the dynamic duo.

Anyhow, it was a very entertaining episode and who could have guess that a joint win could have happened!

I really enjoy this season. But I’m a bit disappointed in the producers for portraying JungMoon that selfishly. I liked the way they were quite neutral about these kind of things and if it was Kyungran they would be, but JungMoons seems to be treated differently. [In my opinion they could have portrayed Kyungran as a selfish person in episode 5 as well, as she was convincing everyone but Dongmin that she was a loyalist, but the producers decided to give her some screen time to be able to say “How desperate for survival can one be?!”. I really hate this…]

Anyway I have a question to those clever people around here: In my opinion the game would have been better with 9 people playing it. Then the cop could have been played more cleverly. Do you agree on that or did I miss out on something? I felt like the cop card in this episode was like discarding your chance since there were only few cases where it would have mattered…

Kyunghoon is annoying me immensely, he is now responsible for my two favourites getting eliminated. Junseok really should’ve chosen Jungmoon for the deathmatch, seeing as she betrayed them and Yeongseung has helped him in the past.

The main match turned out rather differently to the way I expected and achieving such a multiple-way joint win was… pretty much uncanny. Perhaps a quieter episode than the ones we’ve seen previously, but nevertheless another good one.

Rememer the apparent throwaway remark that the season winner could have 200 garnets or none? My guess is that the 3-player game will have garnets absolutely a-popping, but also plenty of reason for someone to spend (practically?) all their garnets in order to win the game and make it to the final.

I admire Monorail. I think the “win, or prove it’s impossible” structure is elegant and satisfying. Both times it has been played it has generated an exciting conclusion – but both times it’s generated a really ugly victory, harking back to the “beautiful defeats and ugly victories” tagline.

I don’t know if the best strategy would be to tell the truth all the time about the role you picked or lie on a regular basis- with the penalty for lying if you lie and don’t get a garnet is it worth it to lie at all?

And based on the preview? I’m 99% sure the Main Match next week is based on this game:

The last several main matches have all blurred into sameness for me. Fickle rules force an alliance of x number of players, and then they are betrayed. In a flashback that contains not one single brilliant moment that changes everything, but adds the entirely predictable third of the episode they left out. It’s not that they are bad per se, but I’m quite past ready to move a different style of play. In this particular one, I was pumped for a reveal of someone having their remote replaced with one of another player to devastating effect, but that wasn’t to be.

In that sense the Deathmatch was a relief, being the simplest and evilest of the games. (Some old analysis of the game with links to a long introduction of the math involved may be found at: https://chaosatthesky.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/the-genius-by-a-skymins-mind-7/ ) Yeonseung thought he was outsmarting a well-prepared trap, but instead his obvious reluctance to engage with this sort of game was exploited to the full. The result was both cringe-worthy (solution paths weren’t that hard to find) and sublime drama at once.

Throughout the season I find that I enjoy more and more Junseok’s style of play. Kyunghoon intrigues me. He says one ridiculous thing, then does another, and then he gets away with it. Is he being defensive against filming overlapping broadcast? He seems to be the hungriest of the players by a wide margin; it’s easier to root for people that want to win this badly.

I’ve hated Junseok since he was responsible for killing off my two favourites in the first three episodes, but he’s weirdly morphed into someone I’m rooting for despite him constantly targeting the most likeable players. It’s just good to have a smart person willing to stand up to the boring Dongmin domination.

I actually can’t quite believe Kyunghoon has gone from irritant I would have been happy to be eliminated early to someone I’m sort of rooting for. Ever since winning Betting RPS he’s been proving he’s actually really smart, and whatsmore played his image spectacularly this week.

Monorail has managed to surprise on both its outings, it almost feels too simple and that it feels like a game where whoever went first or second could guarantee a victory but it’s not really happened. I know my first thought after seeing the move was that it would be impossible because you’d have to similarly snake up the other side, twigging whilst Yeonseung was figuring it out that that’s not actually the case at all. Sad to see him go, but can’t defend Junseok not still being there.

I enjoyed the episode, it kind of had everything, but I also agree we’re probably due something a bit more math-sy and game-y, but it looks like seed poker is going to fit the bill.

I’ll leave some space for spoilers:
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I’m not happy with this season anymore. Well it was always about serious games, but it used to feel more light hearted in the main match. In this episode it felt like everyone was forced to play this game and no one had any fun. It also seems to be more focused on the players’ personal dramas with each other than in the earlier series (and gets a bit of a tone of normal reality show à la Big Brother imho) in the main matches.
I’m not too happy with the DM result as well, I think the editing for choosing the opponent was weird (not surprising at all), since Kyunghoon is a loose cannon, he could have chosen everyone. I also think that Kyunghoon has been playing well in the DMs before, but in the main matches he’s just a snitch without any plans himself. And in this DM he was utterly lucky with the cards he got, therefore it felt like none of the DM players were able to actually show their abilities. I don’t want to say that he was just lucky, I mean you still have to win the game, but he could have played more of a psychological battle with Kyungmoon if the game had lasted longer. And that’s what I’m looking for in this show.
I’m looking forward to next week though. After the last Minus Auction I bought the card game myself and I’m interested in how they changed it for this season.

Agree about the low fun factor and I think that Hyunmin and Jinho felt the same way. And that they can see Dongmin is a lot to blame. Should Jinho finish last in a MM I think Dongmin will need a token of immunity to avoid the DM.

Is it just me, or was Dongmin kind of acting like a child in this episode? Kyungran and Jinho didn’t do exactly as he ordered in the first round by giving him the win so he acts like they’re throwing away all the goodwill they’ve built together instead of just recognizing that Dongmin ALWAYS gets the best deal out of their alliances and saying “Hey, maybe WE should be the safest ones for once?” And then acting like it was completely unreasonable that Kyungran and Jinho would ask for another win to guarantee their safety after hearing from Jungmoon that Dongmin was offering to give up Kyungran’s and Jinho’s information. It just annoys me how he’s all for working together and looking out for each other but only if everyone does exactly as he says and lets him get the early lead. Kyungran even went to Dongmin multiple times saying “I’ll help you, just tell me what to do” and Dongmin told Kyunghoon to take HER to the deathmatch rather than Jinho even though Kyungran was folding towards the end rather than trying to win while Jinho was actively screwing up the other side’s plans.

I do agree that it was right for Jungmoon to go to the deathmatch this week though. She’s had a lot of bad play lately, and the other 6 deserve to continue more than she does. Also, I’m liking Kyunghoon more and more with each episode, which is something I’d have thought was impossible early in the season. I wouldn’t mind seeing him make it to the finals at this point.

DongMin is such a strong alliance/ social player that he is dogmatic (like Kim Gu Ra in Season 1 but more approachable). He is slightly “possessive” or control-freak if you may. This is not necessarily bad because we need this type of “party whip” to unite a group of people. But if things don’t go in his favour, he evidently goes into the “join me and survive for another day or die” defensive mechanism. And this is not necessary the most pleasant thing to watch on TV. I don’t think he is necessarily childish, but he is definitely has that signature grumpy/thinking-hard look.

Also, he has such a strong leadership aura (SangMin has it too, but he was eliminated early on) that he basically sets the tone for the whole cast. DongMIn happy = Everyone laughing. DongMin sad = everyone nervous.

Through much of season 3 Hyunmin got a bit of a reputation for strategies that were of the form of “Here’s a way we can ensure this person/small group loses”, which backfired on them noticeably in the Constellation Game. I’ve noticed he’s doing that markedly less this season, but I’ve also noticed that Dongmin is actually doing something very similar – but he’s presenting it differently. With the emphasis on the ‘large group win’ he’s actually doing a very similar tactic – because if a large group wins, a small group loses, but this time the loser doesn’t even have much choice about who to go up against.

To his credit, he’s pulling it off repeatedly, but I suspect the basis for this episode originated from Kyungran and Jinho reasoning that someone has to be eliminated each week and unless they take more control soon, at some point it’ll be them.

I’m curious whether, if Jungmoon had accepted the win Jinho gifted her, she’d have been chosen for the DM as she expected. I assume at that point Jinho wouldn’t have let on that she was sharing information, but out of the field of five that remained, I’m not sure who would have been picked. Maybe at that point the DM was inescapable anyway given Kyunghoon’s impulsiveness.

It’s inescapable that Kyunghoon was fortunate in the DM, really, but to his credit, he still played it well. And it’s nice to actually see someone win Same Picture Hunt, rather than having the opponent lose.

But the optimal strategy for the player ahead in this DM is almost always information denial. We saw that second time it was played, the leader always picking a known letter. And that leads to losses.

Which was why I was surprised it made the short list, and also why I expected the shocking twist of a player suddenly starting to make perfect guesses on unopened squares, due to figuring out the Graeco-Latin square of colours and shapes. Instead, the subtle thing we got was that the last tile was always the same due to it standing on the wooden shell.

I was right about what the Main Match was based on- only major differences are that in the original there’s only one “Seed card” (though having multiple ones is an interesting twist), the betting round consists of either betting one chip (though you only start with 4- winner gets all the chips bet plus one as a bonus; 2 extra in the 7th and final round), and the original is recommended for 3-6 players instead of 7.

The DM’s are going to be interesting the next couple of eps- we have 12 Janggi, Double-Sided Poker, Gul-Hap, and Quatro left, and Gul-Hap seems to be the game no one wants to get….

I think Gyul!Hap! Is so skill-based that it really depends on your mental fortitude at the moment, and usually when you are entering a DM, your mental state is probably not the best. (I.e. JinHo’s mental breakdown this episode or KyungRan’s “I hate JungMoon” riled-up state).

Also, it is the type of game where there is only one or two elements is play. (I.e. Double-Side Poker, you can kind of play the psychological side, the luck side, the betting strategy, the analytical “what card is left” strategy etc. but for Gyul! HAP! You only have the analytical side and the “should you call the last Hap!” Strategy). This game is basically anyone’s game (don’t bash me but I don’t think DongMin is as strong compared to the other players left)

I am also interested in 12 Janggi because we know that out of the remaining players, HyunMin and KyungHoon are beasts, so you are probably in big trouble if you are playing against them. I predict that this game will be vetoed many times from now on. This game is basically HyunMin and KyungHoon’s extra lifeline.

For Double-Side Poker, I think this is seriously anyone’s game. I don’t necessarily like this game but I’m looking forward to see who will be playing this.

Last but not least, Quattro, not my favourite game (a fan of more skill-based games) but it is a really fun game. However, I’m wondering how they will pull it off with only at most 4 spectating players (IF they play it next episode), unless of course, there are returning players or virtual players like the Betting RPS in season 3.

Frankly, Kobayakawa is only modestly exciting, with massive positional advantage. The mods amplify that: the added player means enough collusion always reveals your card. Being able to add seeds and have them sorted means high card strategies are very unlikely now, and the lowest card almost certainly wins. To stage an upset, you’d need more players between you and the low card to pass than the seed difference. So in essence, low card wins unless you’ve got lots of partners -yawn.

Personally, I’d have gone with a strict seed queue . Low card gets earliest seed, third lowest gets last seed, a 4th seed pushes the first out. This reinforces the positional advantage, but at least that gets rotated. Probably 14 rounds too, to guard against a terrible draw when your position is actually useful.

But that feels like engaging in the wrong task. Using boardgames for matches de facto excludes the narrative mechanism that endeared the show to me in the first place. In some episodes, the narration used to turn on figuring out important properties of the task, and how the players having that insight applied it. A board game however needs to have complete, consise rules with clear implications, and replayability precludes relying on one nasty game-upending trick. So the only way to improve your odds in a clear fair game is through lots and lots of collusion.

Not related to episode 8, but my friend Phil who has been running a campaign of the games from series 3 with people from his games club (they’re down to the last four now!) points to this article which, in translation, suggests that the rights for the show have been sold not only to France and the Netherlands but also to the UK. It’s not clear who in the UK has purchased them, but I dearly hope it’s someone at the Bar.

Trying to get my head round new tactics for Gyal! Hap! which already does my head in. I understand why they’ve changed the rule, to avoid boring play, so presumably the tactic is to deliberately pass if you think there are two haps left and hope your opponent doesn’t notice?

Anyway, pleased that AMAZING SPECIAL GUEST STAR AHYOUNG is coming back next week.

Kyungran is my favorite Genius player behind Junghyun so that was one of the most depressing death matches to watch. 🙁 I don’t even know who I’m rooting for now. I would say Kyunghoon, but I don’t think I can until the bitterness over him throwing Kyungran under the bus in this episode goes away.

I’m glad that JinHo got the spotlight for his solo MM win and DongMin got the spotlight for the DM.

They both played very well. I feel like this is a back to form for JinHo in the MM, and of course, DongMin dominates as usual. KyungHoon did what KyungHoon does best, which is betraying/ lying. HyunMin, JunSeok were playing well too. I feel like that if KyungRan went for that -20 cube in the end, it would have been better, but I guess her actions show why I like her as a player so much, so no complaining?

Now we are down with the final 5, and I don’t want to see any of them eliminated. Can we end the season now?!

Kyunghoon had the best strategy and should have won, but reverted to his old inexplicable self at the worst possible time. I feel it’s really going to hurt him – Junseok would have been a useful ally, and he really needed the garnets. Jinho did fine I suppose, but the winner was always going to be a little bit luck-based.

I think the deathmatch showed us the difference between someone who sees The Genius as a nice diversion from her normal job, and someone who wants to win (again) in the worst way and has been spending the last couple months practicing. At first I thought Kyungran vetoing Twelve Janggi was a bad idea, but he’s surely been practicing that too… At this point Dongmin has to be the favorite by a significant margin.

The remaining guests are Kim Poong (season 1 player who’s known as Garnet Lover as he likes to deal with garnet openly) and Lee Jongbum (season 3, webtoon artist,the one who is beaten by Hyunmin in Twelve Janggi)

Does anyone have any idea how many garnets Kyunghoon has after that? There were so many deals that I really couldn’t keep track, but I *think* he actually only lost a few in amongst it all.

I have to say, “I’m out of chips, but if you pay me a garnet to pass it on, I will” is a tactic I hadn’t thought of to, effectively, pass for free. Risky, but has some potential, and it does look like Kyunghoon did a good job of leveraging it.

Everyone had a reasonable pool of garnets, but it strikes me that this game gets very different if you’re on a low garnet count, too. If someone’s out of items to stake, don’t they get all remaining cubes by default?

They would always have a chip or a garnet because it would have to be passed to them in order for them to take it, and then you’d use that item to immediately pass if you wanted. You can be in a position where you might be forced to take something, but you’ll never be in a position where you’d be forced to take *everything*.

If you did just take every block you’d still lose because the removed block forces a break in the sequence, and if nobody played a chip they’d end up with a positive figure.

His method of play is almost ingenious but he’s a random factor in the scheme of things really – perhaps he’s more interested in the screen time than the money? It’s becoming a large pot to mess about with though.

Not if you spend your last garnet to pass it, and then someone else takes the cube before it orbits back to you. Which, admittedly, is trivial to avoid – you really can’t afford to risk spending your last garnet – but possibly something that might slip your mind when it’s a dangerously high number.

I’m not too happy with this episode because of its result. But I hope next week will be the game I was hoping for after the reveal of “-26” today. I really want everyone who was betrayed by Kyunghoon to turn their back on him, either in the next episode or (which I was hoping for at first) in the final. Although then the final would be as boring as the Dongmin one, so I hope he’ll be eliminated by the returning players next week. I really see why you would betray some people at some times in this game, but Kyunghoon is just a bad player who is lucky with people still trusting him somehow and betraying them immediately. I can’t stand that.
I hope Dongmin will make it to the final, I don’t know who else should be in it though. Jinho would be my favourite if he was played as brilliantly as in his first season, Hyunmin is also not playing well enough somehow. But these could be seen as my favourites.

I’m hoping for a final faceoff between Jinho and Hyunmin, myself. They’ve both proven themselves to be very good at the solo aspects of the game, so I would expect a final between those two to have many moments worthy of Extreme Ways.

Of course, Jinho vs. Dongmin would probably make for an interesting final as well, given that Dongmin appears to have been studying and practicing the Death Match games.